Regional Operations Manager

Closing Date

Job Title: Regional Operations Manager

Location: East Sussex/ Kent- covering sites around Kent- Driving licence is essential-

3x Office/ Site days and remaining WFH

Work type: Permanent
Hours: 37 hours per week
Salary: Up to £70,000 plus £400 per month car allowance

Approximately 1.5 million people. That’s how many customers are living in the region for which this role is based. They rely on Southern Water to provide 24/7 wastewater services. Do you wish to play a vital role in your community, help to safeguard our natural resources for future generations and work in a region that includes more than 800km of pristine coastline?

We have an exciting opportunity for an experienced Operational Manager to join our excellent Wastewater Networks Operations Team, based in Kent in a Senior Management role. That's all the sewers and sewage pumping stations that need to work 24/7 for our customers and the environment.

This is a permanent role, working 37 hours per week between Monday – Friday. There is also an expectation / requirement to participate on the Incident Management Rota which is set up to cover anything that occurs out of hours.

You will be responsible for delivering operational excellence across the Kent geographical area to ensure that all strategic targets are met. As a senior leader, you will be expected to show leadership in creating and leading business changes and must be able to work collaboratively across the whole of Southern Water.

This is not your standard role. It’s high octane with the opportunity to be a part of a positive and motivated team, with lots of change management, improvement and an excellent chance to develop. You will need to be versatile and resilient as you seamlessly transition from responding to in-day operational challenges to delivering our Waste Networks Operational Excellence Transformation Plan. This plan aims to improve performance today whilst driving towards a strategic leap forwards in 2025 when we launch our new service delivery and commercial models with our critical supply partners. For further information on our plans, please find more information on this link.

The main responsibilities are to meet the Companies customer and environmental performance targets and ensure value is at the forefront of the teams mind. To do this the role will work with key internal and external stakeholders, ensuring that all actions adhere to Southern Waters modus operandum of Doing The Right Thing, Succeeding Together Always Improving and Working with Care.

The successful candidate will be responsible for ensuring that the right capex and opex improvement plans are in place. Risk management is also a core element of the role. You will drive our front line teams, contractors and service providers performance and ensure that appropriate plans are in place to deliver on planned work, whilst effectively managing the reactive element of the role within the business. You will manage all business change effectively and continuously evaluate resource plans to deliver against business risks efficiently.

To be successful, you will ideally have strong experience within a Utility, Maintenance or Operations environment. You will have strong Managerial knowledge and people Engagement skills, leading a team of direct reports, with excellent financial acumen and understanding of financial management would also be beneficial as the role will require you to manage large budgets for your area. Knowledge working with complex and sometimes incomplete data sets with the ability to provide effective conclusions is required.

You will need a strong work ethic, good resilience and be able to excel within a pressurised environment. Unwavering high levels of honesty, integrity combined with a no nonsense attitude will be required to successfully work within our team. This is how we do things in Waste Networks.